| Hit Dice: | 7d8+14 (45 hp) |
| Initiative: | +3 |
| Speed: | Fly 60 ft. (good) (12 squares) |
| Armor Class: | 16 (+2 size, +3 Dex, +1 natural), touch 15, flat-footed 13 |
| Base Attack/Grapple: | +5/— |
| Attack: | Swarm (2d6) |
| Full Attack: | Swarm (2d6) |
| Space/Reach: | 10 ft./0 ft. |
| Special Attacks: | Blood drain, distraction (DC 15), poison pollen |
| Special Qualities: | Half damage from slashing and piercing, low-light vision, plant traits, regeneration 5, swarm traits |
| Saves: | Fort +7, Ref +7, Will +2 |
| Abilities: | Str 2, Dex 17, Con 14, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 3 |
| Skills: | Hide +11, Listen +2, Spot +2; racial bonuses |
| Feats: | Alertness [bonus], Ability Focus (poison pollen) [bonus], Lightning Reflexes [bonus] |
| Environment: | Wilderness of the Beastlands |
| Organization: | Solitary, pair (2–4), or colony (5–8) |
| Challenge Rating: | 6 |
| Treasure: | None |
| Alignment: | Always neutral |
| Advancement: | — ♊ |
| Level Adjustment: | — |
Ahead of you lies a beautiful bed of hundreds of large red flowers speckled with gold and black. Their sweet perfume isn’t quite strong enough to disguise the sent of rotting flesh, and looking closer, you notice the flowers seem planted in dead bodies. Suddenly, all the flowers shudder as if in a strong breeze and lift into the air. They fly up like a flock of sparrows coming aloft and swoop around toward you with flowers pointed away and wicked thorns aimed in your direction.
Dread blossoms are blood-drinking plants from the Wilderness of the Beastlands transplanted to the Material Plane by foolish elves who mistook their nature.
An individual dread blossom looks like a foot-long crimson flower, speckled with gold and black pollen, that ends in a 6-inch-long hollow thorn surrounded at its base by a frill of inch-long roots. Few creatures can examine a dread blossom in such detail, as a dread blossom swarm at rest is usually firmly planted in the bodies of its last victims.
In flight, a dread blossom swarm resembles a flock of birds wheeling swiftly through the air. Each blossom flies thorn forward, fluttering two petals as rapidly as a hummingbird flaps its wings.
Creatures of the Beastlands know not to disturb beds of dread blossoms, but inhabitants of the Material Plane are often curious about the dead creatures where the plants have taken root.
A dread blossom swarm swoops in to surround a creature and attacks. It uses no tactics except to move over creatures paralyzed by its pollen. It avoids areas of intense cold or heat but otherwise attacks until it or its target is killed.
Blood Drain (Ex): In addition to swarm damage, a dread blossom swarm deals 1d6 points of Constitution damage to any paralyzed or otherwise immobilized living creature whose space it occupies at the end of its turn.
Poison Pollen (Ex): A dread blossom swarm constantly exudes an airborne contact poison in a 15-foot radius. Creatures within the area or within the swarm must succeed on a DC 17 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 1 round. Secondary damage is paralysis for 1 minute. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Regeneration (Ex): Fire and cold deal normal damage to a dread blossom swarm. See Regeneration.
Skills: A dread blossom swarm gains a +10 racial bonus on Hide checks in forested areas.
Dread blossoms are native to the plane of Lamannia, the Twilight Forest. They gather in the jungles of Aerenal. Millennia ago, elf sorcerers living on Xen’drik brought the first dread blossoms to Eberron to plague their giant masters. Dread blossom swarms continue to ravage the inhabitants of the jungles of Xen’drik and Aerenal. The elves of Aerenal have been accused of deliberately transplanting and unleashing dread blossom swarms upon their enemies, most recently the orc tribes of the Shadow Marches.
Source: Monster Manual III, page 45.